Chapter 828 — The Spring Wind

Norris looked at the land before him, already restored to health, and a smile slowly spread across his deeply wrinkled face. Making no effort to hide his relief, he looked at the agricultural assistants and druid experts around him one after another, nodding again and again. "As long as it works, as long as it works..."

His gaze passed over face after face, some weary, some excited, and finally came to rest on a peculiar tangle of flowering vines in the corner. The old man walked over slowly and stopped before the vines. "Lady Beiyila, thank you for your assistance. Without you, we could never have found the most effective purification method so quickly..."

The flowering vines rustled and writhed, and amid the twining growth of green leaves and blossoms, a woman's figure emerged. Beiyila appeared before them all, her expression utterly flat. "Don't thank me... In the end, I'm only making amends for the mistake we ourselves committed."

"But Neutralizer Number Three was ultimately completed with your help," Norris said, shaking his head slightly. "And without your life-catalyzing power, we could never have finished all the sample testing and comparative analysis in a single winter."

Beiyila listened to Norris's words, her expressionless face showing nothing but calm.

The poisoner knows the antidote, and the Order of All Things' End, which once spread its curse across this land, naturally held detailed records of that curse as well. And as the "miracle creation" who inherited the Order of All Things' End's final legacy, she had indeed succeeded in helping the people of the Thorin Castle research facility find the best means of neutralizing the crystalline contamination in the soil—only, in her own view...

This could hardly be called an "honor."

"Finding Neutralizer Number Three alone isn't enough. The next difficulty is how to mass-produce it as quickly as possible," one of the experts present broke the silence. "It takes time for a thing to go from the laboratory to the factory, and time for raw materials to become product—spring planting will begin soon, and whether the heavily contaminated zones can be restored to cultivation is the key to our getting through this crisis smoothly."

"Fortunately, the neutralizer's preparation process isn't complicated, and the existing alchemy factories should all be equipped to produce it. The key is just gathering the raw materials and refitting the reaction vessels," another technician said. "If the alchemy factories in the Saint Sunil and Pompeii regions start up at the same time, we should just make it in time."

Beiyila listened to the discussion, the branches and blossoms behind her swaying gently. "If you need me, I can help—the ecological pods growing in my root zone can also be used to synthesize the neutralizer, though the efficiency may not match your factories..."

"Those ecological pods are cultivating the seeds needed for spring planting, and that's just as important to us," Norris cut Beiyila off. "Lady Beiyila, please trust in the power of Cecil Industries. The alchemy factories will handle the production problems ahead."

Then the old man smiled again. "Of course, if a risk of insufficient production does arise, we will certainly turn to you for help in good time."

Beiyila watched the old man in silence—this man who possessed no transcendent power whatsoever, whose very life was already nearing its end, yet who was leading thousands upon thousands of ordinary people like himself, together with the transcendents willing to throw themselves into this cause, to reverse a catastrophe. For a moment she said nothing.

She closed her eyes slightly, and her perception spread outward, gazing upon all that lay within this land.

In the Month of Revival, when heaven and earth grow warm again, another wind swept across the wilderness plains of the Sohlin region. It blew through the vast canopy of the Great Sohlin Tree, so immense it blotted out the sky, stirring unending waves among the layered branches and broad leaves.

At the summit of the Great Sohlin Tree, the gigantic arcane obelisk gave off a faint blue glow, floating in the air and operating in serene equilibrium. Within the hub monitoring station set in the lower trunk, above the arcane-net terminal directly linked to the obelisk, a greeting from a distant site was materializing:

"Luan Hub transmitting to Sohlin Hub, greetings to our compatriots in the Reconstruction Zone—the weather in Frostgate City is fine and clear today."

Deep underground in the Great Tree District, amid the vast, winding root system, the former headquarters of the Church of All Things' End had been claimed by vines, roots, and modern civilization. Bright mana-crystal lamps lit the once gloomy, oppressive rooms and halls; beneath their glow, lush plants clustered around one translucent ecological pod after another. Within the pale yellow biomass solution lay a great abundance of life wrapped in culture medium—no longer twisted experimental organisms, nor lethal spawn of the gods, but the most ordinary of grains and legumes, and they were ripening at a rapid pace.

These were the fruit of an entire winter's labor by Beiyila and the Empire's druids, successful specimens after countless rounds of catalytic cultivation—seeds that could thrive even in lightly contaminated regions.

Druids of the Empire, robed in long or short vestments, busied themselves among the culture vessels, observing samples, recording data, screening specimens—quiet, orderly, earnest, and rigorous.

This could not help but remind Beiyila of times past, of the way those followers of the Ten Thousand Shades Cult had once busied themselves in the underground palace.

But everything was unmistakably different now.

Technology had, in the end, returned to the direction it was always meant to take.